Fireworks over the Castle as my farewell to Edinburgh!

National Monumnet (based off of Parthenon in Athens) on top of Calton Hill in Edinburgh. This is the uncompleted memorial to commemorate those who died in fighting for the U.K. in the Napoleonic Wars.

Nelson's Monument

Views of Edinburgh from Calton Hill

View of Palace of Holyroodhouse at the end of the Royal Mile-official residence of the Scottish queen. At leats I think that's what this is.

View of the Old Town

The spire on the left is St. Gile's Cathedral

This was the view from my seat on the side of the hill under the observatory to watch the fireworks. Too bad it's like 7 p.m. at this point and fireworks don't start until 9 p.m.... (Dugald Stewart Monument in the foreground-what a Scottish name-Dugald...)

Same view, but around 8 p.m. (there wasn't much to do...)

Sunset over Edinburgh!

Sunset over Princes Street and the Castle

Maybe 8:45ish or so-finally getting dark!!

Finally!

Last morning in Edinburgh-A cathedral on York Street that I saw from the bus coming back from Glasgow and wanted to check out

One last look at the Scott Monument on the way back to the hostel

One last view of the Castle through Princes Street Gardens

Ross Bandstand where the orchestra played the night before to the tune of the fireworks (or maybe vice versa)

Little kid kilts!haha Colton's lucky he didn't get one of these ultra-hip outfits. It would have been like Ralphie getting the bunny suit in The Christmas Story-he would have had to wear it at least for Halloween.haha

Farwell to kilts and Scotland. I loved my time there!

So when I arrived back to St. Andrew Square (where the bus station is), I decided that as I was already fairly near it, I would go up to Calton Hill which boasts some of the best views of Edinburgh. It stands at the end of Princes Street (exactly the opposite end of the street from my hostel and the Castle). It was also about 6:30 p.m., so I could get some good dusk shots of the city. Well walking up there, I kept seeing Event Staff like those that were stationed all along Princes Street (the street had closed at 6 p.m. to allow the spectators to start lining up along the barricades). After taking in the views, I noticed that quite a few people were sitting around on the hill facing the Castle with blankets, beer, and dinner. I decided that even though it was about 2 hours until the start of the fireworks, there couldn't be a more perfect place to watch them than from here (well actually in Princes Street Garden would have been nice-or at the bandstand underneath the Castle where the Orchestra was playing, but those seats were either sold out or you had to buy tickets for them somewhere that was unknown to me). So I found an old man that had set up his tripod and fancy camera and sat near him as he must know where the best view is. It turned out that he was a professional photographer and had photographed the fireworks from all over the city throughout the years and liked this spot best.

As the sun started going down, I began to get pretty cold (the sweet old man even offered me his jacket). I hadn't planned on staying out past dark, I had planned on going back to the hostel to change before the fireworks, but there was no point in that now. The hill was getting packed, and I would lose my seat in the good hour it would take me to run back to the hostel and get back. I also knew that realistically, if I made it back to the hostel, I woudl not leave again after being out all day. So once the fireworks actually started, I positioned my camera on my knee and took hundreds of continuous shots. Too bad my knee and hands were shaking so much from the cold that most of the shots were blurry, but it was still a great show! We couldn't hear the music from up there, but I think we had the best view of the 45 minute fireworks show. Afterwards, trying to get hundreds of people down the one ancient staircase up to the hill took quite some time, then fighting the crowds down Princes Street to get back to the hostel was tiring after a long day, but definitely worth it!

My last morning in Edinburgh, the tiredness and running around finally hit me (my train left around 12:30 in the afternoon, and of course I was up by 7 because just like every other morning, the girl above my bunk was the one in the room who had to get up at 6 to catch a plane/train/bus somewhere else). I tried to go back down near Calton Hill/St. Andrew Square to look at the Cathedral and also go in the tourist shops to buy Cotlon a little surprise. I didn't have much energy though and finally headed back to the hostel to hang out before the train. My nice dormate even carried my suitcase down al the stairs to help me out!

When I got to the train station, I was a bit early and looked at the arrivals board instead of the departures and went to the wrong platform. Luckily, another lady was just as confused and had enlisted the help of station staff to take us to the right one which was miles away and all under scaffolding in the part of the station being renovated. We would have never found it! The station was in an uproar because Prince Charles was coming into Edinburgh from Glasgow in just a few hours, so the station was buzzing with police and drug dogs. Finally on the train, but not in my reserved seat because a really sweet lady and her dog were in it, and she preferred not to move him as her dog had just had a fright when he had fallen in between the platform and train at the last station. She told me that he was not currently speaking to her, so moving him would be troublesome, but the seat in front of mine was available if that was ok. Between her, the lady that had gotten lost with me who I talked to for about an hour or so, and the nice old photographer from the night before, I decided that Scottish people were among the nicest I had encountered. All in all, I loved Scotland and the really nice people that call it their home!

Tour of Edinburgh's Old Town!

A market on Castle Terrace road which runs behind Edinburgh Castle. I wandered onto Castle Terrace off of the main road the hostel was on. It was only a few minutes from the hostel, and led right into the Old Town! Such a better route than all those stairs! The market was selling all kinds of things such as fresh flowers, fruit, homemade cakes, homemade soap, and of course-Haggis-which sounds, looks, and smells like the most unappetizing meal ever. It's the sheeps heart, liver and lungs, along with some veggies and seaonsings cooked inside the sheeps stomach or a sausage casing. ughhh gross. I didn't look at it for more than a few seconds.

Edinburgh Castle from Castle Terrace road

The Grassmarket was one of Edinburgh's main markets for cattle and horses from the 1400's to the early 1900's. It is also where public executions were carried out. Wouldn't know about this smelly and scary past today-it's one of the most charming streets in all of Edinburgh in my opinion!

I love that places in Europe have so much history!


West Bow-goes from the Grassmarket to Victoria Street and had little charming buildings with cafes and boutique shops!

Victoria Street -found a great art gallery here that I bought a few prints from!

The Royal Mile (approximately a Scot's mile-not sure what that is or how it compares to a "real mile") runs from Edinburgh Castle to the Palace of Holyroodhouse which is the official residence of the Scottish Queen (I didn't know they had their own monarchy, just like I didn't know that they had their own bank notes-not coins, just notes. And each different bank makes their own notes, so they all look different. It was great for my foreign money collection! Looks like I visited like 4 different countries!).

And they have phone booths! I somehow thought that these were just English...

Need a kilt? The Royal Miles was filled with touristy shops selling kilts and cashmere and all things plaid.

These guys were everywhere! Nice skirt.

His outfit seemed much more official than the last guy's.

Entrance to Edinburgh Castle

View from the top of Edinburgh Castle

View of Princes Street and the Scott Monument from the line of defenses...

Princes Street view from Edinburgh Castle

Way harsh...

So there was a private weddding in St. Margarets Chapel (can't even imagine how expensive it would be to get married in Edinburgh's oldest building, but as they had 3 silver Mercedes with white bows tied around them to take the wedding party back down from the Castle, I doubt money was an object). The groomsmen and men in the family all wore kilts and those little hats and there was an official bagpiper who followed them in and out of the chapel. It was pretty cool to watch!

He looks most official

Another view of Princes Street from the Castle

Can see the hostel from on top of the Castle!

They were setting up for the Fireworks show on Sunday night from on top of the Castle. There were loads of fireworks. After watching the show, I can see why there were so many-it lasted 45 minutes!

So the first night in the hostel was not great. Because it's such an old building (or I'm assuming it was although it's located in the New Town), the noise from the streets below sounded like it was coming from inside the room. Since the city is so small too, people stayed out until 5 a.m. since there wasn't the tube closing at midnight to stop you from staying out! I think because it was the end of the festival too, maybe they stayed out later than usual. All myself and my dormates could hear was some girl cursing out a guy for about 3 straight hours over all of the regular drinking/pub type music and noise. And of course, the girl in the bunk above me needed to be up at 6:45 to catch her bus back to London. So a few hours sleep with my earphones in and music blasting all night to drown out the street noise wasn't amazing. Oh and very strange, this first night in the hostel, 4 out of 6 people in my dorm (one being me obviously) were French. There were no Americans from what I could tell from hanging out in the lounge. And no British. I found this strange...

The views from the Castle were amazing, but I didn't actually like the exhibitions. For one, the Crown Jewels exhibition was so packed that when I got into the starting room, I ended up just standing in a very slow moving line that snaked through very small rooms with 7-8 foot ceilings and no air conditioning. The rooms themselves had fake Venetian plastered walls done in high gloss paint that looked like an insane interior decorator had gotten ahold of and been given a command of carry out a "medieval theme". The rooms had mannequins acting out historical events (they didn't move, so acting out means more in the motionless way) with a voice from the ceiling telling you about them. It didn't seem very historical, and all I wanted was to get out. There was no way out of the exhibit though, although it seemed like everyone's main priority, but I found ways to cut the line because I only found out once Iwas in, that my handy audio guide said it would take about 30 minutes to get through (and the guide obviously didn't see these crowds standing still).

The exhibits mostly had mannequins "acting out" the events or something just as cheesy. It reminded me of a poor man's version of the Pirates of Carribean ride in Disneyworld, without the fun boat ride, singing, jovial priates and special effects. It was more walking (very very slowly) and the mannequins didn't swing to the music or pretend to drink. I especially felt this way in the Prison exhibit where the POW's had stayed. The exhibit lacked the mannequins but instead had speakers coming from the bunks with men talking about their lack of food and entertainment, clothes hanging from the rafters, and moving shadows cast high on the walls of prisonsers fighting to add some motion to the exhibit. Hard to explain, but really, just picture a really bad Disneyworld Pirates of the Carribean ride (for the record, that's one of my favorite Disney attrcations).

After the Castle, I walked more around the Old Town and made it back to the hostel around 7ish again after some more reading in the Princes Street Garden. Despite the bad Castle exhibits (the wedding with kilts and bagpiper made up for those), the Old Town was definitely my favorite part of Edinburgh!